- Hong Kong: Beijing puppet regime police harass artist for trying to commemorate Tiananmen atrocities
Source: Associated Press
“A performance artist in Hong Kong tried on Wednesday to honor the victims of Beijing’s 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown but was quickly stopped by police, the latest sign of the city’s shrinking freedom of expression. Sanmu Chen tried to tie a symbolic red thread to a street signpost in Causeway Bay, a busy shopping district close to a park that for decades hosted an annual candlelight vigil on June 4 to commemorate those who died in the crackdown that ended student-led protests in Beijing in 1989. Police officers stopped Chen and searched his bag before letting him go. Hong Kong was for decades the only place in China where a large-scale public commemoration of the crackdown was held. The massive annual vigils were banned in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, and public acts to mark the Tiananmen Square killings have become increasingly sensitive in the city in recent years.” (06/04/26)
- TX: Flesh-eating screwworm found, sparking fears for US cattle
Source: Washington Post
“A case of New World screwworm has been found in Texas six decades after the flesh-eating pest was largely eradicated in the United States, sparking an aggressive response amid fears about its potential impact on the livestock industry. The U.S. Agriculture Department confirmed the parasite was detected in the umbilical area of a 3-week-old calf in Zavala County. There have been no further cases detected, and efforts are underway to contain and eradicate it, the agency said in a statement Wednesday. New World screwworm is a parasitic fly that affects livestock, pets and wildlife, as well as people in rare cases. It lays eggs in open wounds or orifices, with the hatched maggots burrowing into and feeding on flesh. It’s typically found in South America and parts of the Caribbean but has moved north through Central America and Mexico since 2023, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.” (06/04/26)
- Guide missing for a week on Mount Everest found crawling to base camp: “Nothing short of a miracle”
Source: CBS News
“A Sherpa guide who went missing last week while descending Mount Everest with a client has been found alive, according to the crew that led the search for him. His survival amid treacherous conditions on the world’s tallest peak has been hailed as ‘a miracle’ by the mountaineering community in Nepal. Dawa Sherpa, 52, was located while crawling down to base camp and has since been reunited with his family, who said they had given up hope for his return. … Dawa was located by a cleaning crew Thursday morning as he was crawling down the snowy slopes around the Khumbu Icefall, just above base camp, said Pemba Sherpa of 8K Expeditions, which coordinated the search. He was quickly carried down to safety and given food and water. A rescue helicopter flew him to HAMS Hospital in Kathmandu, where his wife and daughter, who already had begun funeral rituals for him, were waiting.” (06/04/26)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/guide-missing-week-mount-everest-found-alive-base-camp/
- US weekly jobless claims increase to four-month high; worker productivity revised down
Source: Reuters
“The number of Americans filing claims for unemployment benefits increased more than expected last week, touching their highest level in four months, but the underlying trend remained consistent with a stable labor market. Economists shrugged off the rise in weekly jobless claims reported by the Labor Department on Thursday as volatility related to last Monday’s Memorial Day holiday. Claims tend to rise around public holidays. They said there were no signs yet the Middle East conflict was having a noticeable impact on the labor market, though uncertainty was growing.” (06/04/26)
- NASA’s Mars MAVEN probe is dead
Source: Engadget
“NASA has officially ended the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission, six months after it lost contact with the probe. MAVEN was the agency’s first program dedicated to studying the Martian atmosphere and its evolution. It launched in 2013 from Cape Canaveral and entered the Martian orbit nearly a year later in 2014. The probe’s primary science mission was scheduled to last one year, but it ended up spending more than 11 years in orbit, sending back data from Mars. NASA even used it as an antenna for the Mars 2020 mission, which brought the Perserance rover to the planet. The last time the agency heard from MAVEN was on December 6, 2025, before it suddenly lost signal after passing behind Mars.” (06/04/26)
https://www.engadget.com/2187315/nasa-ends-maven-mars-mission/
- Trump whines over “unpatriotic” vote to shut down his illegal Iran war
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“US President Donald Trump has hit back at lawmakers who voted to send him a rebuke over the war in Iran, labelling the group ‘unpatriotic.’ On Wednesday, the US House of Representatives passed a measure that seeks to halt Trump from taking further military action. In a post on Truth Social, the president wrote: ‘Yesterday, in a meaningless vote, the House voted, 4 bad Republicans and all of the Dumocrats, to limit my War Powers, right in the middle of my final negotiations to end the War with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Who would do such an unpatriotic thing.'” (06/04/26)
- Blackstone restricts flagship fund withdrawals as private asset fears reemerge
Source: CNBC
“Blackstone is restricting withdrawals from its flagship Blackstone Private Credit (BCRED) fund following a spike in investor redemption requests. The asset management giant capped investor withdrawals from the $79 billion non-traded business development company at 5% of shares, after redemption requests hit 10%, or about $4.5 billion, during the second quarter.” (06/04/26)
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/06/04/blackstone-caps-withdrawals-private-credit.html
- Feds: Airport suspect packed explosive device for flight, caught with cryptic message on phone
Source: Fox News
“A California man is facing federal charges after authorities say he attempted to pass through security at Sacramento International Airport with an explosive device in his carry-on luggage while preparing to board a flight to North Carolina. Kimani Osayande Jones, also known as Kimani Osayande Jackson, 49, of Sacramento, was charged by criminal complaint with unlawfully possessing explosive material in an airport …. Authorities allege that a search of his carry-on backpack revealed an M-type explosive device, a torch lighter capable of igniting it, a knife, scissors, a scissor blade, an aerosol can and zip ties. … Federal prosecutors said Jones was also carrying five cellphones. According to the complaint, all five phones had tape covering their front-facing cameras. One phone allegedly had a 15-minute timer ready to start, while another displayed a message from an unidentified number stating, ‘we will be awaiting your call.'” (06/04/26)
- Israel: Smotrich announces plan for 2,162 squats in occupied West Bank
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has announced a major expansion of illegal [squats] in the occupied West Bank, as he pushes to annex more of the Palestinian territory. Smotrich said on Wednesday that a planning committee had approved the construction of 2,162 new Jewish homes, of which 1,006 units will be in a new illegal [squat] near Jerusalem, 922 near the city of Nablus and 234 near Hebron.” (06/04/26)
- CA: Bay Area woman accused of setting fire to nation’s oldest Buddhist monastery
Source: SFGate
“Police have arrested a 36-year-old Mountain View woman in connection with a fire at the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center in Carmel Valley earlier this year. Announced Tuesday by the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office, the arrest comes after an investigation that revealed GuoGuo Lu was allegedly making online statements tied to the fire and threats toward other Buddhist temples in the state. The fire happened on March 27 at the oldest Japanese Buddhist Soto Zen monastery in the country, officials said. The sheriff’s office said Lu is facing several charges, including arson, making criminal threats and committing a felony hate crime.” (06/03/26)
https://www.sfgate.com/centralcoast/article/monastery-fire-arrest-carmel-22290279.php
- “Tank bottom”: Oil industry warning Trump administration that drained inventories threaten to spike gasoline prices
Source: Politico
“The oil industry is warning the Trump administration that a Hormuz-sized hole in the world’s petroleum market is steadily draining inventories to levels that are likely to send global energy prices surging in the next several weeks, according to four executives. Industry executives have flagged the issue to senior White House officials and Cabinet members in recent weeks as part of the Trump administration’s ongoing dialogue with the U.S. energy industry, the people said. The warnings came as recently as late last month as data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration and other sources began showing that fuel makers were increasingly relying on oil and fuel from their storage tanks to replace products no longer arriving from the Middle East.” (06/04/260
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/06/04/oil-price-spike-white-house-hormuz-00949435
- NY: Massive inferno tears through historic psychiatric center
Source: New York Post
“A massive fire tore through multiple buildings of an historic psychiatric facility in the Hudson Valley, wild footage shows. The blaze erupted Wednesday at the abandoned Hudson River Psychiatric Center in Poughkeepsie, which was established in 1867 and placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2007 after closing years earlier, according to Pix 11. … The cause of the fire remains under investigation, but officials confirmed the campus is not connected to the electric grid.” (06/04/26)
https://nypost.com/2026/06/04/us-news/inferno-tears-through-historic-new-york-psychiatric-center/
- Artists threaten legal action against Venice Biennale over inclusion in visitors’ ballot
Source: Seattle Times
“Dozens of artists participating in this year’s Venice Biennale contemporary art show are threatening legal action if their names are not removed from the ballot allowing visitors to vote for the best national pavilion and overall participants in the absence of a jury to award the prestigious Golden Lions. The Venice Biennale opened its most chaotic and contested edition in recent memory on May 9, with the prestigious Golden Lion yanked from contention after the jury quit in protest of Israel’s and Russia’s participation. The week of previews leading up to the public opening was characterized by loud protests outside the Israeli and Russian pavilions. … Signatories seeking to be removed from visitor prize contention include some 70 artists participating in the main show and nearly 40 national pavilions, including those of Iceland, Norway and Denmark, which have led the call to have Russia barred from returning to the Biennale for the first time since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.” (06/04/26)
- German regime blames Russian regime for “bitter defeat” in UN Security Council bid
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“Germany’s foreign minister says support for Ukraine and Israel may have cost votes after Berlin failed to secure a rotating spot on the UN Security Council. Johann Wadephul described losing out to Portugal and Austria as a ‘bitter defeat’ after a vote on which countries would become one of the five new members of the council was held on Wednesday evening. ‘There is our firm support for Ukraine, the fact that Russia does not want such a voice at the Security Council,’ Wadephul said, adding it was ‘no secret’ Russia had stirred up sentiment against Germany. There are five permanent members of the UN Security Council – China, France, Russia, the UK, and the US – and 10 temporary ones.” (06/04/26)
- Somalia: Armed clashes erupt in capital ahead of a planned anti-regime demonstration
Source: ABC News
“Supporters of opposition political figures and state security forces continued to clash in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu on Thursday after fighting broke out Wednesday evening ahead of a planned anti-government demonstration. No official casualty figures were immediately available from the violence that prompted calls for restraint from the United Nations and the United States as the government and opposition traded blame for the violence. Residents reported heavy gunfire and explosions as fighting broke out in several neighborhoods Wednesday. … Opposition figures say the rally planned for Thursday was intended to protest what they call constitutional violations and efforts by President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud to extend his tenure. The government has rejected those allegations.” (06/04/26)
- ME: Former primary rival resurfaces to challenge scandal-plagued Graham Platner in US Senate race
Source: Fox News
“Scandal-plagued democratic socialist Graham Platner’s continued controversies have led his former primary rival to speak out and remind Mainers that she remains on the ballot despite having suspended her campaign. Platner has been hit with one controversy after another, though he remains the heavy favorite heading into next Tuesday’s primary contest, as his only active opponent, David Costello, has failed to gain traction. But Maine Gov. Janet Mills, who suspended her campaign for Senate earlier this year, dropped a potential bombshell in comments to a Lewiston Sun-Journal columnist by suggesting Democrats could still vote for her in their effort to unseat 30-year incumbent Sen. Susan Collins, New England’s last remaining federal Republican officeholder.” (06/03/26)
- US Heimatschutz Cancels Most Pending Noem-Era Contracts After Review
Source: US News & World Report
“The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is canceling most pending contracts initiated under ousted Secretary Kristi Noem, the current secretary said on Wednesday, a move that follows congressional scrutiny and an internal watchdog review of her contracting practices. During a hearing before the U.S. House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee, Secretary Markwayne Mullin also said he would restore longer training for federal immigration officers, reversing a Noem-era decision that shortened training during a hiring surge and drew bipartisan concerns in Congress about whether recruits were adequately prepared. Mullin faced questions from a top Democrat about what steps he had taken to roll back Noem-era contracts. ‘We are looking at the contracts that weren’t already signed, and we did go through and cancel most of those,’ Mullin said. The move is part of a broader effort by Mullin to unwind contracting practices under Noem that drew bipartisan criticism.” (06/03/26)
- TDS Watch: The “Convicted Felon” Argument
Source: Town Hall
by Larry Elder“‘Trump is a convicted felon!’ Who hasn’t heard this attack line made constantly by critics of President Donald Trump? For them, Trump’s conviction settles the debate about his character and fitness for office. But consider what one prominent legal analyst — not from Fox News, Newsmax or a conservative publication — wrote about the case. The charge against Trump brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg boils down to this. Trump recorded payments connected to the Stormy Daniels matter as legal expenses. Bragg transformed that into 34 felony counts and secured a conviction in a jurisdiction where Trump remains unpopular. Elie Honig, CNN’s senior legal analyst, outlined his objections in New York Magazine. He was brutal.” (06/04/26)
- Congresswoman Fakes Code Pink “Assault,” And Other Notes
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone“Republican congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna falsely reported that antiwar activist Medea Benjamin ‘smacked’ her during a confrontation on Thursday, subsequently calling the police in an effort to get the Code Pink leader charged with assault. If you watch the video of the so-called ‘assault,’ it’s the funniest thing you’ve ever seen in your life. The 73 year-old activist barely grazes the clothing on Luna’s arm with her hand while speaking, after which the US Air Force veteran Luna collapses into a pile of blubbering victimhood. Benjamin reports that she was briefly detained by Capitol Police after the incident, but was released without charges after officers reviewed the video footage.” (06/04/26)
https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2026/06/04/congresswoman-fakes-code-pink-assault-and-other-notes/
- In Britain, A Tragic Murder Was Followed By Mass Confusion
Source: Persuasion
by Cathy Young“Here’s what the case looks like without the hyperbole.” (06/04/26)
https://www.persuasion.community/p/in-britain-a-tragic-murder-was-followed
- CA Dems dumped Porter, but Maine Dems hold onto Platner for dear life
Source: Fox News
by Hugh Hewitt“Former Democratic Congresswoman Katie Porter got smoked in Tuesday’s ‘jungle primary’ for California’s governor’s race, the runoff for which will come in November. Right now, it looks like Steve Hilton vs. Xavier Becerra will face each other in the general election, though that won’t be certain for days — but we do know Porter won’t be in the final. She plummeted from her position as the early front-runner and darling of progressives last year after questions about her temperament surfaced and she never left. When ABC News ran headlines like this last month, readers knew her campaign was finished: ‘Katie Porter fights questions on temperament as the only woman in crowded California gubernatorial race. Experts are mixed over whether she should have raised outbursts that went viral.'” (06/04/26)
- Commerce and Warehouse Clubs
Source: EconLog
by Art Carden“Sol Price did not set out to change retail. He stumbled into it by accident and alertness. He was an active member of his community in San Diego and served as a lawyer for several retailers and wholesalers, including those in jewelry and liquor, who sold to a Los Angeles store called Fedco. He accompanied his clients to Los Angeles to visit a Fedco store. Fedco was a store that sold to government employees at deep discounts. Price observed that many government employees commuted from San Diego to Los Angeles, and he believed a similar store could do well in San Diego. He and his partners presented their proposal to Fedco, which rejected it. Price, however, had a warehouse in San Diego he needed to do something with, and he thought, ‘Why not do in San Diego what Fedco doesn’t want to?'” (06/04/26)
https://www.econlib.org/econlog/commerce-and-warehouse-clubs
- Roddie Edmonds and the Power of Saying No
Source: The Daily Economy
by Barry Brownstein“Liberty depends on individuals saying no to power, especially when authority demands moral compromise, as one American officer proved behind barbed wire in World War II.” (06/04/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/roddie-edmonds-and-the-power-of-saying-no/
- Can’t Anyone Here Not Play This Political Game?
Source: Garrison Center
by Joel Schlosberg“It may be 64 years after the New York Mets losing 120 baseball matches in their debut season led manager Casey Stengel to plead ‘Can’t anyone here play this game?’ Yet The Wall Street Journal columnist William A. Galston notes that the same question could still apply to another ‘two monumentally inept teams.’ … Galston has in mind the Democrats and Republicans, ‘Capitol Hill’s Unlovable Losers’ (May 27). Less than two full years after the 2024 presidential election, Galston has merely to nod at the former party’s abject failure to learn from their loss, and the latter’s squandering of what little momentum remains from their win.” (06/04/26)
- It’s Time to Set Global Labor Standards for the Gig Economy
Source: Foreign Policy In Focus
by Lena Simet & Anna Bacciarelli“Most discussion of artificial intelligence and work is about the future: which jobs may disappear, which skills may lose value, which workers may be replaced. But for millions of gig workers, who work for online platforms such as Uber, this future is already here. Algorithms set their pay, assign their tasks, monitor their performance, and determine whether they can keep working at all. … This leaves many workers with unstable pay, dangerous conditions, and little recourse when something goes wrong. But this could be about to change. From June 1 to 12 in Geneva, governments will enter a final round of negotiations at the International Labour Organization (ILO), the United Nations agency dedicated to labor rights, over the first binding global standard for what is called platform work.” [editor’s note: The “problem” with gig workers is that they don’t answer to government bureaucrats, and lovers of government bureaucracy hate that – TLK] (06/04/26)
https://fpif.org/ai-runs-the-global-gig-economy-governments-must-respond/
- Nobody’s Perfect
Source: The Dispatch
by Kevin D Williamson“Progressives rallying around the troubled candidacy of Graham Platner, the habitually dishonest skirt-chasing Totenkopf enthusiast challenging that nice Maine lady for a Senate seat, have learned precisely the wrong lessons from Republicans’ experience with Donald Trump, an experience that has left the GOP morally debased and ethically discredited and—perhaps Republicans will actually care about this part—unable to get much of what it wants politically. Legitimate issues, such as immigration control and abortion regulation, have been tainted by association with Trump and Trumpism, which means dishonesty and stupidity in the formulation of policy followed by incompetence and corruption in the execution of policy. Progressives will get the same thing from such a figure as Platner.” (06/04/26)
https://thedispatch.com/article/platner-trump-morals-perfect-maine-primary/
- The 26-Year Assault Is Over
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob“Gary, Indiana, initiated its action against a laundry list of gun makers, distributors and dealers in August 1999. The suit accused them of culpability for crimes committed with the weapons they had brought into the marketplace. At the time, making and marketing guns was legal; still is. So the suit was manifestly absurd from the outset. Perhaps cities contemplating litigation against baseball bat makers and steak knife vendors will accept the lesson.” (06/04/26)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2026/06/04/gun-rights-survive-26-yr/
- A Free Market Approach to Healthcare: Lower Costs and Better Outcomes
Source: CounterPunch
by Dean Baker“[T]he big story that fans of free markets everywhere should be focused on is the money we pay for things like drugs and medical equipment. This year we’ll spend close to $750 billion on drugs and other pharmaceutical products. We’ll spend over $50 billion on various therapeutic devices used at home. Hospitals and other providers will spend over $130 billion on medical equipment. … Insofar as drugs or scans are expensive, it is almost certainly due to patent monopolies or related protections.” (06/04/26)
- Expanding the Abraham Accords Would Help Netanyahu, Not America
Source: The American Conservative
by Doug Bandow“[T]he so-called Abraham Accords, long touted as a major achievement from Trump’s first term, are a pious fraud. Though depicted as a kind of peace deal, they have nothing to do with peace, since none of the participants—so far Bahrain, Kazakhstan, Morocco, and the United Arab Emirates (Sudan signed on but fell into civil war before ratifying the agreement)—have been at war with Israel. Nor has the lack of Israeli embassies across the Persian Gulf and North Africa prevented any nation from engaging in back-channel security cooperation. … expanding the Abraham Accords would act as a Hail Mary political pass to Netanyahu, who faces a difficult reelection campaign. It would both offer a dramatic success to the Israeli prime minister and act as a de facto endorsement by the American president. Indeed, Trump appears to believe his ability to shift votes is as great in Israel as in U.S. primary contests.” (06/04/26)
- Trump’s art of the deal meets Iran’s long memory of foreign exploitation
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Tanya Goudsouzian & Ibrahim Al-Marashi“Washington may view these talks as a standard business transaction, but history has taught Tehran that a compromise with the West is a trap.” (06/04/26)
- A Timely Impeachment Primer
Source: Law & Liberty
by James Wallner“Impeachment has become more common in American politics in recent years. Democrats impeached Donald Trump twice in his first term. The Senate failed to convict him both times. Yet the power remains poorly understood despite its rising prominence in political discourse. Keith E. Whittington’s new book aims to fix that.” (06/04/26)
https://lawliberty.org/book-review/a-timely-impeachment-primer/
- Can California Still Be Saved?
Source: American Greatness
by Victor Davis Hanson“The recent California gubernatorial and Los Angeles mayoral elections—where, remarkably, Steve Hilton and Spencer Pratt both appear to have advanced to the general election in November—offer a glimmer of hope. Could it be that some on the Left, along with a number of Independents, have finally realized that neither wealth nor an upscale ZIP code can protect them from the Left’s vindictive socialist madness? California gas prices, even prior to the Iran war, had reached the highest levels in the continental United States. The cause is self-evident: left-wing policies that forbid most new gas and oil exploration, impose radical green-fuel mandates and levy the highest gas taxes in the U.S. and drive out oil refineries. Illegal immigration has soared. Currently, some 11 million Californians—28 percent of the resident population—were not born in the U.S.” (06/04/26)
https://amgreatness.com/2026/06/04/can-california-still-be-saved/
- Illegal Tariffs, Round 3
Source: Paul Krugman
by Paul Krugman“Another failing war Trump won’t end.” (06/04/26)
- Copernicus at 500
Source: Libertarian Institute
by Joseph Solis-Mullen“Famed for his contributions to the hard sciences—most notably his theory of heliocentricity—the sixteenth-century astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus was also an acute analyst of monetary policy. To that end, Ralph Benko has done us all a great service with this new edition of Copernicus’s classic, if neglected, treatise On the Minting of Money. Indeed, its lessons, though nearly five centuries old, remain evergreen.” (06/04/26)
- Why Stone-Faced Fascists Keep Getting Antiquity Wrong
Source: The Bulwark
by Bret Devereaux“Homer is back in the discourse on account of Christopher Nolan’s upcoming film, The Odyssey. The latest controversy began with Elon Musk, among others, protesting the supposed inaccuracy of casting Lupita Nyong’o as Helen, a fictional character, who among other fantastic elements is the daughter of the god Zeus and was laid as an egg by her human mother. … the fight over Homer represents just another skirmish in the campaign mounted by bigoted very-online right-wing self-described ‘chuds’ to claim Greek and Roman culture for their own fascist, or at least fascist-adjacent, ideology, which demands the exclusion of minorities, women, and LGBTQ people.” (06/04/26)
- There Is No Reprieve in the Fed’s War on Savings
Source: Cobden Centre
by Max Rangeley“There is a particular kind of financial wisdom that used to be passed down at kitchen tables. A grandparent, someone who remembered harder times, would explain that the first obligation of a responsible person was to spend less than they earned, put something away, and let patience do its quiet work. The savings account was not a sophisticated instrument. It was a vessel for deferred consumption—a way of translating present discipline into future security. The interest it paid was modest, but it moved in the same direction over time. That world has not merely changed. It has been, in a precise and largely unacknowledged sense, inverted.” (06/04/26)
https://www.cobdencentre.org/2026/06/there-is-no-reprieve-in-the-feds-war-on-savings/
- As we approach July 4, the capital is, fittingly, a mess
Source: Los Angeles Times
by Jackie Calmes“Just a month out from America’s celebration of its 250th birthday, the national capital is a mess. And I’m talking about the sites central to the pilgrimages that millions of Americans make each year to Washington, especially the White House. The once-verdant park remains a construction site, with makeshift fencing only partly obscuring the vast scar that was once the East Wing and the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden. Cranes sway in place of the felled trees, to build President Trump’s billion-dollar ballroom despite court orders and overwhelming public opinion against it. The South Lawn has been replaced with a gargantuan circus-tent-like arena for Ultimate Fighting Championship cage matches and a Trump-picked audience of thousands. Yes, cage matches. To mark not the nation’s birthday but the president’s 80th on June 14. Because it’s all about Trump.” (06/04/26)
- NATO Propagandists Again Proclaim That Ukraine Is on the Verge of Winning the War
Source: Antiwar.com
by Ted Galen Carpenter“NATO partisans in both Europe and the United States are perpetual optimists about Ukraine’s prospective fortunes in its war against Russia. Lately, there has been yet another inundation of such accounts in Western news media outlets. Many of them emphasize that Moscow’s latest military offensive against Ukrainian ground forces has come to a halt with inconclusive results. The lack of a decisive breakthrough, members of Ukraine’s fan club contend, means that Russian president Vladimir Putin has again failed in his quest to conquer Eastern Europe’s resilient ‘democratic’ frontline state. That version of recent developments contains just enough truth to gain credibility among gullible opinion shapers and political leaders in the United States and in most other NATO countries.” (06/04/26)
- The One Conscience Claim America Won’t Honor
Source: Common Dreams
by Harry Seavey“The war in Iran has forced many Americans to confront what their tax dollars make them party to. After the US has killed hundreds of Iranian children in school and bombed the country’s civilian infrastructure, more and more Americans are considering tax refusal. It’s a tradition older than the republic itself. Quakers resisted military taxes in the colonies, sometimes at the price of seized property. Thomas David Thoreau was jailed for refusing a poll tax in protest of slavery and the Mexican-American War. And hundreds of thousands resisted the telephone tax during the Vietnam War, when the National War Tax Resistance counted 192 centers in 45 states. Call that ‘freedom.’ In an age of ascendant religious liberty, a fortunate class of Americans enjoys it in special measure. Employers, schools, religious institutions, and corporations have won exemption after exemption from ordinary legal duties they claim violate their religious faith.” (06/04/26)
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/us-doesn-t-honor-anti-war
- Does MAGA Actually Believe Their Voter Fraud Conspiracy Theories?
Source: Washington Monthly
by David Atkins“It sounds too weird to be true, but in the Trump era, frequently, the dumbest explanation is often the right one.” (06/04/26)
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2026/06/04/maga-believe-voter-fraud-conspiracy/
- Economic Calculation and a Southern California Beach Girl
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by William L Anderson“When the communist regimes of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990 and 1991, followers of the Austrian School of Economics knew that socialism’s lack of a coherent method of economic calculation certainly led to the demise of these regimes. Economists had known for years of the chronic shortages, shoddy workmanship, and all of the other negative aspects of economic life in those countries and why no one who understood socialism was surprised at these results.” (06/04/26)
https://mises.org/mises-wire/economic-calculation-and-southern-california-beach-girl
- The Men Defending Graham Platner In All The Wrong Ways
Source: Liberal Currents
by Alan Elrod“You cannot defeat misogyny by behaving like a misogynist.” (06/04/26)
https://www.liberalcurrents.com/the-men-defending-graham-platner-in-all-the-wrong-ways/
- If This Is Winning, America Can’t Afford Much More of It
Source: Rutherford Institute
by John & Nisha Whitehead“We are losing ground economically. We are losing credibility abroad. We are losing tourists, workers, stability, trust, constitutional guardrails, and whatever remained of the illusion that the government answers to ‘we the people.’ The tourism economy is taking a hit, with international visitors increasingly reluctant to come to the United States. Even migration—the lifeblood of America’s economic growth, innovation, labor force and national renewal—is now moving in the wrong direction. Fewer people are coming in, more Americans are leaving, and by some estimates the country has already crossed into negative net migration. That is not the mark of a nation ‘winning.’ It is the mark of a nation people are increasingly choosing to escape.” (06/03/26)
- The “rich” aren’t the problem
Source: Eastern New Mexico News
by Kent McManigal“There’s a lot of hostility toward ‘the rich.’ Especially billionaires. The hostility is misplaced. The real divide is not ‘the rich’ versus ‘everyone else.’ It is those who seek to rule, versus everyone they seek to rule.” (06/03/26)
- The Myth of a Permanently Poor Underclass
Source: The Daily Economy
by Vance Ginn“The bottom income quintile is not a static social class but a temporary snapshot of lives in motion. Most Americans do not remain poor for life, and removing policy barriers can help more people move up.” (06/04/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/the-myth-of-a-permanently-poor-class/
- Trump’s Immunity Deal Stinks Even More Than His Blatantly Corrupt “Anti-Weaponization Fund”
Source: Reason
by Jacob Sullum“An addendum to the president’s ‘settlement’ of his lawsuit against the IRS shields him and his family from liability for any federal offenses they committed prior to May 19.” (06/03/26)
- Trump’s Dubious New Section 301 Tariffs
Source: The Volokh Conspiracy
by Ilya Somin“Ultimately, the new Section 301 tariffs appear to be yet another attempt to give the president a blank check to impose tariffs at will. The same is true of the administration’s plans to use Section 301 to target ‘structural excess capacity,’ which rely on the absurd premise that it is somehow an unfair trade practice for countries to be able to produce more goods than they can use themselves.” (06/04/26)
https://reason.com/volokh/2026/06/03/trumps-dubious-new-section-301-tariffs/
- An interesting thought about RINOs
Source: The Price of Liberty
by Nathan Barton“To be a RINO is a frequent accusation in today’s atmosphere, generally by those GOP types who claim to be ‘true conservatives.’ Or ‘real conservatives.’ Or ‘classical conservatives.’ Or even Trumpistas and MAGA types.” (06/03/26)
https://thepriceofliberty.org/2026/06/03/an-interesting-thought-about-rinos/
- Let California’s winds of change sweep all of Blue America
Source: New York Post
by staff“Winds of change are blowing across California — and should bring hope to all Americans now suffering under arrogant Democratic-machine misrule. It looks like both Steve Hilton and Spencer Pratt will be on the ballot this fall, for California governor and Los Angeles mayor — a huge sign of voter rebellion in a deep-blue state. No, the results aren’t final, because Cali authorities now take weeks to count the last ballots — itself a sign of institutionalized incompetence, as even Third World nations manage to get the task done in a day. Each man will be an underdog in November — but the machine candidates are such total mediocre-at-best hacks, and fury at machine-run government’s failures all across the Golden State is at such a high pitch, that the rebels’ odds are looking better than they have in years.” (06/03/26)
https://nypost.com/2026/06/03/opinion/let-californias-winds-of-change-sweep-all-of-blue-america/
- I Love SpaceX But Hate Its Proposed IPO
Source: Coyote Blog
by Warren Meyer“I have been recuperating from some health issues and have not been writing much, but I really don’t want to miss out on putting my oar in the water prior to the SpaceX IPO. As background, I love to watch what SpaceX is doing in launch and believe they have made a huge contribution to the world in doing so. As a former operator of hundreds of wilderness campgrounds, Starlink was the greatest single new technology for our business in 20 years. But you don’t automatically get your way with stock valuations just because what you do is cool and useful — there has to be some prospect of making back the investment.” (06/03/26)
https://coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2026/06/i-love-spacex-but-hate-its-proposed-ipo.html
- The Murder of Henry Nowak and the Politics of Certainty
Source: Quillette
by Andrew Fox“Henry Nowak should first be remembered as an eighteen-year-old who had moved to Southampton to begin adult life. He was murdered as he walked back to his student accommodation, and those who loved him have been sentenced to a life of grief. That is where any serious discussion of the case must begin. … Nowak’s grieving family asked the country not to use his death ‘to create further division, hatred or tension.’ Their request was unusually and heartbreakingly dignified, given what they have endured. But it was immediately ignored.” (06/03/26)
- A Perfect Fit?
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob“[Graham Platner] presents himself as a working-class guy, though he comes from a wealthy family that placed him in a $75,000 a year prep school. He is an oyster farmer, but most of his income derives from disability payments. He told reporters that he bought his home with a VA loan, but his father loaned him the money. … Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont socialist, [says] ‘We desperately need somebody like him here in the U.S. Senate.’ Graham Platner should fit right in.” (06/03/26)
- Radio Atlantic, 06/04/26
Source: The Atlantic
“Is the GOP Starting to Defy Trump?” (06/04/26)
https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/2026/06/indiana-trump-republicans/687423
- Ron Paul Liberty Report, 06/04/26
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
“House Votes To End Iran War – Will Trump Ignore Congress?” (06/04/26)
- Half the Answer, episode 86
Source: Liberal Currents
“The Two American Reconstructions: An Appraisal, Reflection.” (06/04/26)
- Rising, 06/04/26
Source: The Hill
“Robby Soave gives his radar on the recent anniversary of a tweet from NPR about public health experts signing a letter that supported the anti-racism protests during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.” (06/04/26)
- The Headlines, 06/04/26
Source: New York Times
“G.O.P. Defectors Break With Trump Over War, and SpaceX Set for Largest I.P.O. Ever.” (06/04/26)
- Get Lit, 06/04/26
Source: Racket News
“Matt Taibbi and Brad Pearce ask why reading’s gone out of style, and what’s replaced it.” (06/04/26)
https://www.racket.news/p/get-lit-the-assemblywomen-part-two
- The Daily Blast With Greg Sargent, 06/04/26
Source: The New Republic
“Trump Mental State in More Doubt as Damning New Video Flummoxes Rubio.” (06/04/26)
https://newrepublic.com/article/211355/trump-mental-state-doubt-damning-new-video-flummoxes-rubio
- Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 06/03/26
Source: Antiwar.com
“House Passes Iran War Powers Resolution, IDF Chief: No Ceasefire in Lebanon, and More.” (06/03/26)
- Parallax Views w/ J.G. Michael, 06/03/26
Source: Parallax Views w/ J.G. Michael
“Israel’s ‘Nuclear Ambiguity’ Under Fire in Congress: The Bigger Picture w/ Geoffrey Aronson.” (06/03/26)
- The Briefing Podcast with Michael Waldman, 06/03/26
Source: Brennan Center for Justice
“Trump’s Supreme Court Showdown — and Other Cases to Watch (with Tom Wolf and Wilfred Codrington).” (06/03/26)
- The Kyle Anzalone Show, 06/03/26
Source: Libertarian Institute
“Trump Meeting in Situation Room to Decide on Iran Deal.” (06/03/26)
- Make It Make Sense, 06/03/26
Source: Washington Post
“Did Trump win the late-night comedy battle?” (06/03/26)
- Kibbe on Liberty, episode 389
Source: Free the People
“It’s Time to Legalize Home Distilling | Guest: Robert Alt.” (06/03/26)